Fannie and Alan Leslie Center for the Humanities at Dartmouth College

Achy Obejas: Identity and Dislocation

Havana-born Achy Obejas is the author of Days of Awe, a critically acclaimed novel (Ballantine/Random House, 2001) about the tensions between public and private identities set against the backdrop of the Jewish community in Cuba.

Her other books include Memory Mambo, a novel, and We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?, a collection of short stories. Both books, along with Days of Awe

Her fiction and poetry have also appeared in First Person Queer (Arsenal Pulp), Chicago Noir (Akashic), The Cuba Reader (Duke University), Cuba on the Verge (Bullfinch Press), Isla Tan Dulce (Letras Cubanas/Cuba), Estatuas de Sal, (Ediciones Union/Cuba), The Way We Write Now (Birch Lane), A Fine Excess: Fifty Years of the Beloit Poetry Journal (The Beloit Poetry Journal Foundation) and many other anthologies.

Achy's poetry and fiction have been published in Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Indiana Review, Story, La Gaceta de Cuba, Habana Elegante, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Best of Helicon Nine, Another Chicago Magazine, Abraxas; Antigonish Review, Bilingual Review, Conditions, Ikon, Interstate, Phoebe/George Mason University Review, Rambunctious Review, Revista Chicano-Rique–a, Sing Heavenly Muse!, Sinister Wisdom, Strong Coffee, Third Woman, and many others.

An award-winning journalist, she worked for more than ten years for the Chicago Tribune writing and reporting about arts and culture. Among literally thousands of stories, she helped cover Pope John Paul II's historic 1998 visit to Cuba, the arrival of Al-Queda prisoners in Guant‡namo, the Versace murder, and the AIDS epidemic.

She writes regularly about Latin music for the Washington Post and about books for In These Times.

Her articles have appeared in the Village Voice, Vogue, Playboy, Los Angeles Times, MS, Weep, Nerve.com, Latina, Latin Girl, Poz en Espa–ol, The Nation, Out, Chicago Reader, The Advocate, Girlfriends, Windy City Times, High Performance, New City, Chicago Reporter, The Catalyst, Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times, Hispanic, La Raza, Hispanic Link (a bilingual national syndication service), and many others.

Achy's translation projects have included Maria Torres Piers' By Heart (Temple University Press); catalogue text for "Passionately Cuban", an art exhibition at the University of Albany, Albany, New York; catalogue text for the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Picturing Cuba (University of New Mexico Press, 2002) by E. Wright Ledbetter; and articles for the Chicago Tribune. She was recently contracted by the family of the late Cuban poet laureate Nicol‡s GuillŽn to produce a new translation of his work, including the classic "Motivos de Son" (the only authorized English version was previously translated by Langston Hughes in 1948). She is currently translating Junot D’azÕs acclaimed new novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

During her career, Achy has received a Pulitzer for a Tribune team investigation, the Studs Terkel Journalism Prize, several Peter Lisagor journalism honors, two Lambda Literary awards, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, and residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale and the Virginia Center for the Arts, among other honors.

Her work has been translated into Spanish, German, Hungarian and Farsi. She has lectured and read her work in the U.S., Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Australia, and has served as the Springer Writer-in-Residence at the University of Chicago and the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Hawaii.

Achy Obejas is currently the Sor Juana Visiting Writer at DePaul University in Chicago.

Cosponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities, La Casa, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Latin American, Latin and Caribbean Studies Program, Office of Pluralism and Leadership, Allen and Joan Bildner Endowment and the Jewish Studies Program.